Pentecost 9, Year B (2021)

Proper 12 :: II Kings 4:42 – 44 / Psalm 14 / Ephesians 3:14 – 21 / John 6:1 – 21

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, July 25, 2021.

 

“HOLY WORLDLINESS”

(Homily text:  John 6:1 – 21)

This morning’s appointed Gospel text recounts Jesus’ feeding of a large crowd, one numbering about five thousand.[1] This event is recorded in all four Gospel accounts,[2] [3] a testimony to its significance and importance to the early Christians.

The familiarity of this event might suggest that we approach its significance (beyond the multiplication of the five loaves and the two fish into enough food to feed such a large gathering) from a different perspective. For the purposes of our consideration this morning, I’ve chosen to regard this event from the perspective of “Holy Worldliness.”

The term “Holy Worldliness” deserves some explanation.

I define the two words this way:

Holy:  Having to do with God and with godliness.

Worldliness: Having to do, not with the ways of sin and disobedience to God’s will and ways, but, instead, having to do with the everyday, basic concerns of life.

With these definitions in hand, let’s look at what’s going on as Jesus and the disciples confront the matter of how to feed such a large crowd in what must have been a fairly remote area.

Worldliness is the reason for the gathering of the people who had come to Jesus. They had heard (and seen) what marvelous things He had been doing, in the healing of the sick, and in the teachings which were marked with a compassion for human beings.

It might be easy for us to forget how difficult and uncertain life was for God’s people in the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry. Disease and illness were commonplace parts of life. And, as if to compound the challenge of ill health, the commonly-held beliefs of the time maintained that a person who’d fallen ill must, somehow, be guilty of some terrible sin. Moreover, contact with a person’s blood make the person who touched that ill person ritually unclean, unable to go to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem. (Such attitudes might strike us as being very odd, given the realities we live with today.)

In addition, life was also uncertain. The Roman occupation of the Holy Land brought with it high taxes, brutal enforcement of Roman will, and poverty.

The burdens of everyday life were made all the worse by the attitude of the priests, the scribes and the Pharisees, who valued their own positions of power and prestige above the betterment of the people they were appointed to lead.

It’s fair to say that overwhelming need, physical and spiritual, was probably a motivating factor in bringing so many people to hear Jesus and to receive healing at His hands.

Into this situation, the Holy comes. Jesus brings God’s power to create and to recreate,[4] multiplying the few loaves of bread and the two fish into enough to feed everyone present.

Let’s notice what happens.

Jesus deals with the immediate need. He doesn’t engage in theological thought, or a teaching about the relationship of the Son to the Father (something we see elsewhere in John’s Gospel account, and which we will see in the coming weeks as we explore the aftermath of the feeding of the five thousand). Instead, He meets the immediate and most pressing need before Him.

As we live out our baptismal vows, those which call us to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ”,[5] we will encounter people’s everyday concerns first, in most cases. The condition of their “worldliness” will present itself to us long before any spiritual concerns do. That seems to be the overall pattern as we make our way through life (although the reverse is also possible).

Our concern for others’ practical, worldly situation prompts us to meet those needs. They might be needs for the basics of life: Food, shelter, clothing. Or the presenting need might be emotional….how many people in our world today feel as though no one cares for them, or about them? We can offer a listening ear and a caring heart. That’s a great place to begin. Or other needs might present themselves to us. We harbor concern for, and action to address, such concerns because our Lord commands us to be concerned about and to meet such needs. (See Matthew 25: 31 – 46 for a list of such basic needs.)

Motivating us is a sense of the “holy”, of God pressing in on us, reminding us of God’s continuing love for us.

If we meet the “worldliness” of others first, we establish the framework with which to build a bridge into the “holy”, for the wonderful truths of God can be shared once that link has been forged with others.

AMEN.

         

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[1]   By the reckoning of the times, only the number of men present was recorded. No doubt there were also many women and children present. Matthew’s account of this event states that there were.

[2]   For a comparison of the other accounts, see Matthew 14:13 – 21, Mark 6:32 – 44 and Luke 9:10 – 17.

[3]   Matthew and Mark also record another feeding of a large crowd of four thousand.  See Matthew 15:32 – 38 and Mark 8:1 – 10.

[4]   Whenever we think of the attributes and powers of God, God’s ability to create and to recreate must be among the foremost attributes in our minds.

[5]   Book of Common Prayer, 1979 edition, page 305

Pentecost 8, Year B (2021)

Proper 11 :: Jeremiah 23:1 – 6 / Psalm 23 / Ephesians 2:11 – 22 / Mark 6:30 – 34, 53 – 56

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, July 18, 2021.

 

“GOD WILL PROVIDE: GOOD SHEPHERDS IN PLACE OF BAD ONES”

(Homily texts:  Jeremiah 23:1 – 6 & Mark 6:30 – 34, 53 – 56)

Perhaps we could call this Sunday “Bad Shepherds Sunday” (in contrast to “Good Shepherd Sunday”, which always falls on the Fourth Sunday of Easter each year). Or perhaps we could call it “God Will Provide Good Shepherds and Will Remove the Bad Ones Sunday”. (OK, I guess maybe that title is too long to be useful.)

As is usually the case as we make our way through the season after Pentecost, more than one choice of readings is presented from the Old Testament. And is also often the case, the second option seems to have more in common with the appointed Gospel text than the first choice does. (I know, doesn’t make sense, does it?)

The common thread that links our reading from Jeremiah to today’s Gospel is the business about bad shepherds and bad shepherding. Jeremiah condemns the poor leadership that caused God’s people such hardship in the time of his ministry, saying that – in time – God would repay those bad shepherds for their evil ways, and would replace them with good shepherds who would faithfully lead God’s people. In a similar way, Jesus looks out on the large crowds that had come to Him, lamenting that they were like “sheep without a shepherd”.

Some background work is in order here.

We begin with the context in which Jeremiah’s ministry unfolded. It was, for God’s people in those days, a difficult and trying time. The Babylonians threatened to overrun the country, something they finally accomplished in the year 586 BC. But for many years prior, they gradually exerted more and more power and control over the Southern Kingdom of Judah. In the midst of all this political and military turmoil, there was, in the kingdom, widespread idol worship of various pagan gods. It is true that King Josiah had instituted some reforms a few years earlier (one significant aspect of his reforms was the discovery of the Book of Deuteronomy in the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 621 BC). But pagan idol worship persisted. The leadership of the people in that time (the bad shepherds Jeremiah must have had in mind) kept on saying that all was well within the kingdom. Jeremiah, through the wisdom of God, knew differently. As is often the case with prophets, Jeremiah suffered greatly for his persistent warnings about the coming calamity. Jeremiah experienced the fall and destruction of Jerusalem, and survived it. No wonder Jeremiah is known as the “Weeping Prophet”.

Now, let’s fast-forward some six hundred years to the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry.

The people of God are, again, under the control of a foreign power. This time, it’s the Romans, who brought with their control of the Holy Land a brutal occupation and high taxes. But the leadership of the people seemed to be oblivious to the hardships the people were experiencing. Yes, those very people, God’s people, they were supposed to be leading. These bad shepherds ignored the welfare of their flock. They advanced their own position within society. They ran a lucrative money-changing enterprise in the Temple in Jerusalem (which benefitted the priestly caste in the Temple). They insisted on a rigorous and literal interpretation and application of the requirements of the Law of Moses (Torah). But to make things better in real terms and in people’s daily lives, that requirement of their position as leaders didn’t seem to matter much.

No wonder the Lord looked out on the crowds in front of Him and lamented that they were like “sheep without a shepherd”.

But down through time, God has demonstrated His concern for the people He has claimed for His own, doing so by removing the bad shepherds and replacing them with good ones. He did so by removing King Saul, replacing him with King David. He did so in the time of Jeremiah, destroying the bad leaders of Judah. He did so in the time of our Lord’s ministry, doing away with the self-serving ways of the priests, the scribes and the Pharisees, replacing them with Jesus Christ.

We Episcopalians don’t use the term “Pastor” to describe our ordained leadership very much. “Pastor” means “shepherd”. (Perhaps we’d be better off if we did use that term more commonly than the title “Rector”, which means “ruler”…..No, I, as your Rector, don’t want to be anyone’s “ruler”.)

It is natural to regard the ordained leadership of a parish as the parish’s “pastor” or “shepherd”. Indeed, care for God’s people in the parish is a sacred trust. There can be few higher callings, in my humble estimation.

That calling, however, falls on each and every one of us, each and every one of us who’s gone through the waters of baptism. For in baptism, we promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves”. (Book of Common Prayer, 1979 edition, page 305)

We seek and serve Christ in others in some very practical ways. For example, every time we offer a kind word, we act as shepherd to someone else. Every time we do an act of kindness or offer support for another in a time of trouble or challenge, we act as shepherd to that person. Every time we lift someone up in prayer to God, we act as shepherd to that one in need.

Perhaps the theme for this Sunday might prompt us to evaluate how good a shepherd we are, acting as God’s hands and God’s heart. For God appoints good shepherds to do His work in the world, caring for the people He has claimed as His own. There can be no higher calling than that.

AMEN.

Pentecost 6, Year B (2021)

Proper 9 :: Ezekiel 2: 1–5 / Psalm 48 / II Corinthians 12: 2–10 / Mark 6: 1–13

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, July 4, 2021.

 

“DISMANTLING THE MANTLES”

(Homily text: Mark 6: 1–13)

“A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”

The setting for Jesus’ use of what was, most likely, a common proverb that circulated in the society of His day,[1] is the synagogue in Nazareth, where He had been brought up.

Before we look into the matter of prophets and of prophetic speech and action, let’s note some of the interesting aspects to the interchange between Jesus and those who heard Him in the synagogue that day:

Jesus’ great things He has been doing are acknowledged:  Notice that Jesus’ listeners ask, “How are such mighty acts done by his hands?” It’s likely that they had heard about the healings and other things that Jesus had been doing elsewhere, deeds that Mark relates to us in the preceding chapters of his Gospel account.

Jesus’ wisdom:  These listeners also seem to acknowledge the wisdom of Jesus’ teaching, saying, “What is the wisdom given to him?”  This comment seems to contain two threads:  Acknowledgement of the wisdom of what Jesus is saying, but questioning the source of it.

Disbelief at the changed circumstances of Jesus’ life: “Where did this man get these things?”, they ask. Implicit, I think, in this comment is the knowledge that Jesus hasn’t devoted himself to the rigorous study of the Torah by attaching Himself to one of the famous rabbis of the day. He hasn’t undergone a systematic course of study which would offer the expected credentials for Him to be a person whose word would carry a certain amount of authority. Such an internship was expected. His former neighbors in Nazareth know Him to be a carpenter, a person who works with wood (or perhaps some other hard material).[2]

If we look back into the Old Testament, we can see that the usual pattern of people whom God had called to be prophets fits quite well with the pattern of Jesus’ life and work. For in the Old Testament, the great majority of the prophets were ordinary people. They weren’t members of the royalty of the day, and they weren’t priests.  Normally that’s the pattern we see. But the prophets in times gone by were people whom God called to speak God’s truth, for that is, essentially, the business of prophets and of prophecy.[3]

The calling and the work of a prophet is never easy. Consider some of the accounts of the Old Testament prophets:  Nathan had to tell King David that he was wrong to commit adultery with Bathsheba. Amos was called to go from the Southern Kingdom of Judah northward to the Northern Kingdom of Israel to tell them to abandon their wicked ways. Jeremiah told the leaders of Judah that calamity was coming in the form of the Babylonian conquest that took place in 586 BC. We could cite many other examples.

Jesus’ task in coming among us as one of us wasn’t an easy calling to fulfill, either. Here, in the synagogue in Nazareth, He encounters rejection at the hands of those who had known Him all their lives.

We might ask ourselves, “Is there a place for prophecy today?” If so, then what should the goals of prophetic speech be?

It is the matter of prophecy and prophetic speech that we now turn.

The need to hear God’s truth never goes away. It will never go away until such time as the Lord determines to come again, to usher in that new kingdom that was promised so long ago. Then, when that kingdom comes, God’s truth will be perfectly and completely known, and there will be no further need for reminders of that divine truth and will.

Prophetic speech and truth-telling must be an ingredient in every preacher’s tool kit. The preacher’s task is (as the saying goes), to “afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted.”

“To afflict the comfortable” is to dismantle the mantles and the cloaks we can so easily wrap ourselves up in. Mantles and cloaks of the sort of these:  An attachment to a particular way of looking at things, like being an extreme liberal or an extreme conservative,; to being comfortable in our faith life, without a desire to learn or grow or to follow God’s call into a new and different ministry; to being a part of the church because we love the liturgy, or the music, or the architecture, or we like a charismatic preacher; or we attend service just because it’s a habit we’ve had all our lives. We could, perhaps, add other items to this list.

Sometimes, the preacher’s prophetic task can take on a radical form. Consider the story I heard not too many years ago of a pastor who was called to pastor a dying church. On one of his first Sundays there, he said, “If you’re here this morning just to warm a pew, you can leave now. God doesn’t need you here, if that’s why you’re here.” Wow!  What a gutsy move! Turns out that many people did actually leave that church, but then the church began to grow. (I’m not sure I’d have the nerve to do such a thing, even as I harbor deep concerns about some in our congregation who seem to be content to simply be “pew warmers”.) Making such a move runs the risk of “biting the hand that feeds” one, for the preacher or pastor is usually paid by those he or she is preaching and ministering to.

The goal of prophecy and of prophetic speech is to break through our hardened shells in order for God’s truth to reach deep into our minds and hearts. Prophecy realizes that, no matter how much we might think we know God’s will, and no matter how deeply we might attach ourselves to a particular notion, belief or idea, the truth is that we must reserve about ten percent of our judgment and knowing, seeking God’s truth and understanding afresh and anew. This side of eternity, we do not fully know God’s will and God’s heart. Therefore, the posture we must assume is that we must listen for God’s voice, in order that we might hear it with as much clarity as we can.

In other words, we are called to die, called to die to our self-centeredness, called to die to our desire to follow our own notions, called to die to our attachment to things we like but which have the ability to shut God’s truth out, called to die to a casual and comfortable relationship with God which excludes God’s continuing call to spiritual growth and maturity.

AMEN.

         

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[1]   This saying is still in use today.

[2]   The Greek word which is usually translated as “carpenter” could also mean a stone mason or someone who worked with other construction materials.

[3]   In our own day, prophecy has often come to mean the ability to foretell future events. Indeed, prophecy can involve such an aspect, but an often-overlooked understanding is, generally, the ability to speak God’s truth.